How to make time and money the coming year

Published in Spanish in El Pais January 3rd 2018

Now that the end of the year is near I hear many people complaining that there were so many things they wanted to do this year but didn’t do. “The Year was too short”, “The year flew by” and with those comments we make our promises for next year. Next year will be better and next year we will achieve all the things we want to do without any distractions! But will we be able, or will the year repeat itself and ends with us saying the same things?

I noticed that people can lose a lot of time organizing their lives and homes. Think in how much time we lose searching for stuff that we left somewhere in the house but cannot find through all the mess. Or think how difficult it is to clean a house that is full of things, hanging, standing, lying. Last the thing that hurts me as an economist the most is the value of all those things that we store. Furniture never used, plates still in the box, paintings lying on the attic or clothes worn only once, or not even. How did all that happen?

One thing that I am going to try this coming year is to not let my life be cluttered by unnecessary trinkets and stupidities. I have noticed that keeping an empty desk and an organized house is a huge time saver.

First, I am going to try not being tempted to buy things I do not need and only keep up space in our house. Only clothes I need and not because they are sooooo cheap, only the kitchen stuff we use and not because the add or the seller says it cannot be missing in any house. And certainly, I am going to evade stupid ornamental things that you wonder already arriving home, why you bought it in the first place.

Second, I am going to sell or throw out things that I haven’t used for one year and don’t have any real emotional value. I guess that if I haven’t used them for such a time, they are probably not worth to consume time and space in my life and hope it will find a new owner that does appreciate it more than I did.

I hope that with this I do not lose time, buying things I do not need and moving things I am not using and save some time I lose searching for the things I do need. Maybe on the run I will even save some money. At the end I prefer to spend my time and money on something valuable like a nice vacation or at least a day out with my family. Isn’t a memory of a day at the beach much better than 365 days wondering why you bought that ugly painting?